FB Review

One of the most popular games since Facebook was created is certainly FarmVille. According to AppData Farmville has close to 60 million active users (and this is down from a high of 75 million a few months back). This game is simply MASSIVE, people say its so addictive you’ll need rehab just to quit. Suprisingly enough FarmVille is a game, where you become the owner of your own farm and try to make it productive and of course compete against your friends about who has a better farm.

In FarmVille, you grow your own crops, keep your own farm animals, build your own farm buildings and even have other items that are not regularly found in real life farms, but that make FarmVille one of the most entertaining games on Facebook. However, what bothers me is that the sheer number of users (most of them my friends) causes my news stream to be spammed with in-game messages. Frankly, I don’t care if my friend saved a three legged goat by adopting it, and I simply began to filter out people who use the game.

This application has a lot of crops that one can choose to grow, from tomatoes, corn, blueberries to sunflowers and even watermelon. This game also allows you to have your own fruit trees, which will give fruit every couple of days so that you can pick them up and sell them for some money. You can raise many farm animals in FarmVille, like for example you can raise cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and horses, but you can also raise reindeer, cats, rabbits and ducks. There are many variables to this game and you can make your farm grow as you keep getting a higher level and making more money. What Zynga did with this game is pure genius, if you want a bigger farm and are too lazy to actually do it you can buy the virtual currency directly from them (in exchange for actual currency) and this is how Zynga basically monetizes the game. The more FarmVille money that you have, the more items that you will be able to buy and make your farm a lot better. Just the sheer number of users in this game Zynga is raking in millions, while you are raking your virtual leafs. Remind me to buy Zynga stock when they go IPO (no wonder Google just invested $100 Million in the company).

Overall I’d have to say Farmville is a good game (there are much better out there) but the overkill Zynga did with inter-user alerts really pissed me off so i’m going to deduct some points on that. If you want to find out about some FarmVille secrets (that surprisingly enough not too many people know about…) you should check out our sponsor, I tried them and they do have some tricks which will get you more coins way faster then normal.

If you have ever thought about going into the illegal side of business, but have never had the guts to do it, then playing Zynga’s Mafia Wars will make you feel just like Tony Montana (only without the cocaine and assassins). When you play the Mafia Wars in Facebook, you will have the ability to start your own crime syndicate empire. You will be able to buy businesses, the finest cars, weapons and even deal drugs, rob banks and kill your enemies, and remembers, first you get the money, then you get the power!

Mafia Wars also allows you to set up shop in some of the biggest cities in the world, like New York, Moscow, Las Vegas and even Cuba and take your syndicate global. First, you will need to increase your power and experience level as those features are unlocked later in the game but this helps you control any of these cities and make all of your enemies leave or else you’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse. You will need to complete jobs to get money to finance your criminal activities and some of these jobs can get you either to go to jail or get killed. Some of the jobs will make you destroy enemy hideouts, bust other mobsters from jail and some of the jobs are really odd though, – you have to break into an Asian museum…

After you have earned enough money, you can invest it in weapons such as hand grenades, 45. caliber pistols, rocket launchers and RPG’s (your average gangsta arsenal). You can use these to defend yourself or to attack some of your enemies. You can also purchase body armor, which will allow you to resist more hits and outlast your enemies. With enough money you can invest in some of the properties and get even more money every hour. If you want to control the city your character is in, you will need to play the Mafia Wars Game in Facebook almost as it where the real deal. If busting caps all day isn’t your thing, there are some shortcuts and moves you can pull to speed things along, just check out this site. Plus i’m sure they also have special top secret, never before seen cheats and secrets, but don’t spread this around too much as the more people find out, the less effective these cheats become.

Greetings everyone, in an effort to make FBReview a more social blog, I would like to send out an open invitation to anyone who wants to contribute. You can write your own review on any Facebook app or game you like and submit to the blog! Once reviewed I will post the review for everyone to see! All you have to do is write your review in this form and submit. Make sure you fill out all the fields. It usually takes me about 24-48 hours to go over all the submissions and if yours makes the cut, I will notify you by email when it gets posted.

Here is a great video from Jesse Hirsh from this year’s FacebookCamp in Toronto.  He provides his views on why the top applications on Facebook succeed and what it takes to put together a great application. Definitely worth a peek.

In this section, you will find several tools which may be useful to developers.  There are many tools out there to assist developers in building applications, so it’s important to use the right ones.  Here is a list of several helpful tools which will help you in developing your application:
JustHost – You will need to find somewhere to host your application. JustHost.com is an excellent choice and you can now take 20% off your hosting costs when you use coupon code JHSL20.

PHPDesigner – A free PHP editor which you can use to put your app together

PHP Client Libraries – These are required to interact with Facebook Platform, in this page you can find several official, unofficial and third-party client libraries for various platforms.

Facebook’s API Test Console – Use this tool to experiment with functions and responses, and see what content Facebook Platform makes available.

The Facebook Developer Forums – This is probably THE most helpful tool you can find.  The Facebook Developer Forums are filled with helpful suggestions and thousands of other programmers.  You can post any question you have and you will usually get a reply, either directly from Facebook or other programmers.

Facebook’s FBML Test Console – With this you can experiment with FBML.

Facebook’s Feed Console – Use this tool to register a new template bundle on behalf of any one of the applications you own.

Application Demos – This section holds a variety of Facebook Application demos in various languages and platforms.

I will be updating this section constantly.  If you think I missed something feel free to post it in the comments.

This section is dedicated to helping aspiring Facebook Developers create exiting new applications.  Before you start building an application for Facebook, it is recommended that you first read Facebook Application Tutorial.  It is also important that you read the Facebook Application ToS.  This way you will ensure that your application meets all of Facebook’s requirements and that you don’t waste your time building something that Facebook may later on ban.   You will also need to register to Facebook and add the Developer Application if you have not done so already.

Next (and this is the hard part) is to come up with an idea for that killer app.  If you have already have an idea, that’s great, you can start building the application.  If not, I suggest you look at the various application reviews and browsing the Facebook application directory. 

I understand that not everyone can build an application from scratch; after all it’s not easy if you don’t have a programming background.  However, I believe that with a bit of effort, and the will to learn, almost anyone can put together a simple application.  Although, if you don’t have the time to give it a shot, but you still want to have your own Facebook application, you’ll may want to visit our application outsourcing section.  Here, you’ll be able to find out about paying someone else to build your application for you.

You will also need to familiarize yourself with several key terms.

•    API – Stands for Application Programming Interface. The API defines is responsible for the methods through which you can interact with Facebook. If you are not familiar with the idea of an API, please read about it on Wikipedia or on Digital Web
•    FBML – Facebook Markup Language is a custom markup language based on good ol’ HTML. It’s  used to define the pages in your application.
•    FQL – Facebook Query Language is basically SQL for Facebook.  FQL is a query language for cases where there are no helper methods in the API, or FBML Tags to get your application to do what you want.
•    Canvas Page – This basically your applications page on Facebook.  Using canvas pages, you can embed pretty-much any functionality you want into Facebook.

There are a few things you will need to get before you can start as well.  First you will need to find somewhere to host your application.  The type of host you choose is really up to you but, I recommend JustHost.com for hosting Facebook applications.  JustHost provides excellent customer services and the most bang for your buck and you can now get 20% off your hosting package if you use coupon code JHSL20.

A more detailed walkthrough of how to build a Facebook application will be posted soon.  If you wish to contribute please let me know.

Many people do not have the time to invest into building an application, or simply don’t know how.  These days you can find many programmers who are eager to build applications, but the trick is to find the right programmer for you.

For outsourcing purposes, I always use a website called Rent-A-Coder.  I have been using them for years and find the right programmer at very competitive prices.  Here’s how it works.  You can put out a free, no-obligation bid request and programmers on the site place their work bids.  The great part is that programmers will find you and will bid on the project much like an auction to give you the lowest price.  This way you  will be able to bring your Facebook application to reality in a very cost-effective fashion. 

The coders are rated based on their previous performance and it’s uncommon to ask to see their work portfolio and examples of Facebook Applications they already made for someone else.  You can also issue an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) if you want to protect your application idea.

After you receive bids on your request.  You can choose the right coder for the job.  I always look for coders with high rankings. All the coders on Rent-A-Coder are ranked on previous jobs they did by previous buyers, so this gives you a good indication on which coder can do the job. I tend to avoid coders with small or no rankings even though most of the time their bids are lower. Rent-A-Coder also acts as an intermediary between you and the coder.  You don’t pay the coder upfront for the project, but rather you place the funds into escrow on Rent-A-Coder.  The coder won’t get paid until you are satisfied with the final product, at which time you instruct Rent-A-Coder to release the funds from escrow to the coder.  If there are any problems with the project Rent-A-Coder will act as a mediator between the two parties.

As I have mentioned, I have used Rent-A-Coder on numerous occasions in the past few years and I am really pleased with the services they can offer.  This way you can have that amazing Facebook Application and you can start earning money from advertisements on your application.

If anyone wants to post their programming services, please contact me or submit them in the comments sections.

In order to be listed in our Facebook Developers Directory, you must have at least ONE application running with at least 300 Monthly Active Users. Applications that are ‘in development’ or ‘in testing’ do not qualify. Think your company should be listed here? Feel free to contact us at anytime.

Well, I decided it was time to follow in Facebook’s steps and give FBReview.com a facelift as well.  I hope everyone likes the new design; it took a while to set it up so I hope it was worth all the hard work.  The new changes should improve navigation as well as make room for new sections on the site.  I will be adding a dedicated section specifically geared towards developers with various tools, tips and articles.   If you have any comments or suggestions on how to improve things on FBReview.com please let me know.

Social networks are all about making connections with people from all over the world, but they can also be good for bragging rights.  It seems all the rage these days is showing off how smart you are (what with Who’s Got The Biggest Brain and all). One of the fun things when it comes to Facebook is that all your cerebral glory is documented for all your friends to see. 

If you are like quizzes in general or you like IQ Quiz type of games then you will find Qizr an enjoyable way to spend your time on Facebook. The main idea of this application is for people to upload various images and create a quiz around those images.  You can also offer more and more tips and hits on what the answer would be. Users can add hints based on other people’s guesses in real time.  This is a really cool concept which I have not seen used this way.  I like the fact that people can create their own questions to try and stump their friends.

Another interesting aspect of the Qizr application is regarding the competition between its visitors. Each person can post three guesses until one finally gives the right answer to the question. This way, you can see the answers that the other people gave and compare their answers to yours.

When it comes to posting the quizzes you create on Qizr, you can either allow the access to answer only to some specific groups of friends on Facebook or you can allow anyone to see your question and try to give the correct answer. The answers people provide are posted in real time and so is the correct one so you will have a nice feeling when you will be the first to give the correct answer to a question that you found on Qizr. The diversity of the domains for the questions is unlimited and since questions are constantly uploaded so you will keep on getting an endless stream of questions.